MPAA, US Attorney say White House not involved in Megaupload takedown

And FBI offers 40-page summary of 22 million emails worth of evidence to Dotcom.

Earlier this week, Ars wrote that Kim Dotcom was accusing US Vice President Joe Biden of personally orchestrating the raid of Kim Dotcom's mansion and the shutdown of Megaupload in January. Now, both the office of US Attorney Neil MacBride—the prosecutor in the US vs. Kim Dotcom case—and the MPAA have denied Dotcom's accusation.

In an interview with TorrentFreak, Dotcom said he had insider sources that led him to believe Biden came after him and his operation. Dotcom furnished circumstantial evidence with the White House visitor's logs, which showed a meeting between high-level Hollywood executives and Biden. This included one meeting with an MPA Asia managing director who is also an extradition expert in July 2011. Dotcom didn't give any actual details about his sources, but said he'd reveal them "[a]t the appropriate time."

But on Thursday, the MPAA said that the meeting was to discuss Vice President Biden's upcoming trip to China, during which he would meet about content trade agreements. The executives met to talk about "the importance of reaching a settlement, with the Chinese government, of the United States World Trade Organization complaint against China, which would increase the number of foreign films permitted into that country and provide a better share of box office revenues," the MPAA said in a statement to CNET.

The government is backing the MPAA's statement. "There was no White House involvement in the decision to charge this case," the office of Neil MacBride wrote to CNET today.

Now the burden of proof lies squarely at Dotcom's feet.

In other news, Dotcom's lawyers and the FBI are arguing in a New Zealand court over what evidence against Dotcom will be made available to the defendant before his extradition hearing in August. A New Zealand court previously ruled that the warrants used to obtain evidence against Dotcom were invalid, further tangling the problem of who decides how much evidence the defense's lawyers will get.

New Zealand publication Stuff reports that, "A 40-page document 'cherry-picked' from nearly 22 million emails is the only information the FBI believes should be made available to Kim Dotcom before his extradition hearing," and, "Crown lawyer John Pike argued that there was no need for Dotcom to have access because he was not being tried in New Zealand." The court has not yet ruled on this new issue.